Andy Gavin's Blog, page 158
March 28, 2013
CUR-ATE – Alexander the Great
CUR-ATE is an interesting program run by LACMA where a museum visit is combined with a unique take on cuisine. This event, hosted on March 11, 2013, revolved thematically around Alexander the Great’s epic conquests across Asia.
The evening began with a brief (one hour) tour byMaite Gomez-Rejón (above) through some of the antiquities galleries. This was fun, but rather lightweight for a series Alexandrite like myself. I’ve always had a thing for the conquerer, particularly given that I was born...
March 25, 2013
The Wretched of Muirwood
Title: The Wretched of Muirwood
Author: Jeff Wheeler
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Length: 300 pages
Read:March 3-15, 2013
Summary: Great prose, characters, and setup
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The first half of this novel was pure and unadulterated fantasy pleasure. The prose is very good. Descriptive but quick and lively. It’s pretty straight up third-person past, but it has a tinge of the poetic about it.
The story tightly follows Lia, an orphaned kitchen drudge living in an alternateMedieval Abbey. She’s a very lively personality...
March 22, 2013
A Night of Cheese
The other week we hosted a little wine and cheese night.
The is a nice little cheese spread put together from Andrew’s Cheese Shop. I’ll discuss the cheese itself in a bit, but on the right are variousartisanalcrackers and on the left: honey, dried figs, olives, cornichons, and quince paste.
Here is the cheese. I tried to build a progression from “mild” to “potent.” Now, this should all be taken in the context that I never go boring, being a more is more kind of guy.
I forgot to photo the wines...
March 20, 2013
Untimed Book Trailer
This awesome Trailer for Untimed was made for me by The Other House, a LA based firm specializing in book trailers. They’re one of the few houses with consistently classy output. I went with an animation style because I’m bothered by live action or straight up photography (in a book context). Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 70s and 80s when only cheesy Tie-In novels had photos on the cover, who knows?
In any case, I also had to keep my trailer short (mostly for budget reasons) and so it wa...
March 18, 2013
Valentines at Michael’s
Restaurant: Michael’s Santa Monica
Location: 1147 Third Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403. 310-451-0843
Date:February14, 2013
Cuisine: New American
Rating: Great job with a tough night
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Valentines is a notoriously difficult night to get a great meal on. The frenzied rush to maximize profits usually results in lackluster service and stilted over-priced fixed menus.
The first Valentines my wife and I celebrated was at Michaels, a Santa Monica staple that many credit for inventing New Californian cuisine...
March 15, 2013
Damaged Hermione is still a babe
Title:The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Cast:Emma Watson(Actor),Logan Lerman(Actor)
Genre:Coming of Age
Watched: February, 2013
Summary: Good, serious, teen film
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This film adaption is very faithful. Perhaps not so surprising because the author wrote and directed it! This is tremendously rare. It’sunusualenough for an author to write his own adaption (I’m doing it for Untimed, but I’ll dance the Snoopy dance if I can even get it produced, and set off fireworks if I land any kind of production roll....
March 14, 2013
Game of Thrones – The 1984 Miniseries
If Game of Thrones had aired when I was growing up, in the era of Krull and Beastmaster, the titles might have looked a little like this:
NOTE, that while the makers of this video say 1995 style, it feels more 80s to me. Power chords?
Don’t miss these Season 3 trailers of and making of videos.
If you liked this post, follow me at:
My novels: The Darkening Dreamand Untimed
or all my Game of Thrones postsor
Season 1 reviews:[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
March 13, 2013
Burgundy at Bouchon – Jadot
Restaurant: Bouchon Beverly Hills[1, 2]
Location: 11712 San Vicente Blvd.Brentwood, CA 90049 310.826.9222
Date: March 3, 2013
Cuisine: French Bistro
Rating: Good, but expensive
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Through my recent Burgundyaficionadodinners I was hooked up with a series of winemaker dinners that Wally’s Wine and Spirits throws. These seem to be at Bouchon and feature great wines from a particular winemaker as well as an intimate opportunity to meet the winemaker himself.
This particular dinner features Jadot, which i...
March 11, 2013
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Genre: Coming of Age
Length: 224 pages
Read:March 2, 2013
Summary: intensely readable
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To be clear, I actually saw the film before I read the book, but I’ll discuss the novel first as its the original. Perks is a teen coming of age novel set in 1991. It has no supernatural elements at all.
This is a compulsively readable book.Casually, before picking at the flaws, this is the kind of book you read in one sitting. Every time I run across...
March 8, 2013
Yamakase – Crab Guts are Yummy!
Restaurant: Yamakase
Location: You wish you knew!
Date: March 1, 2013
Cuisine: Japanese
Rating: Best meal in months!
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Back before itsunfortunateincident and closure, The Hump was one of my favoriterestaurants. I went every week or two for years. So it was with greatpleasurethat I discovered its chef, Kiyoshiro Yamamoto has recently opened a new venture. This is a tiny 10 seat sushi bar that follows the semi-secret invitation only style of another of my LA Japanesefavorites: Totoraku (going again n...
